Scania president and CEO’s position merged with that of parent firm
Christian Levin’s inexorable rise through the Scania ranks has seen him come out on top as president and CEO of Traton Group.
This is the outcome of a merger of the leading roles at Scania and Traton, the latter being the former Volkswagen Truck & Bus, parent firm for Scania, MAN, Navistar, and Volkswagen Caminões e Ônibus.
Levin is familiar to the Australian trucking press, having visited this country in 2013 and hosted Australian journalists during Scania’s New Truck Generation launch at Scania headquarters in Södertälje, Sweden, in 2016. He was Scania executive vice president of sales and marketing at the time.
He took the top job at Scania just seven months ago and before that was Traton’s COO.
Levin assumes his new role tomorrow, with current Traton head of corporate finance Annette Danielski becoming the new CFO. Present Traton CEO Matthias Gründler and CFO Christian Schulz leave the company today.
“I am honoured to take on the role as CEO of the Traton Group while continuing on as CEO of Scania,” Levin said.
“Looking ahead, focus will be on transforming business into new technology areas and geographies, whilst leveraging further synergies through modularisation and scalability.
“The evolution of the Traton Group continues and builds on the Traton strategy, which the current management team established and which is now pushed into a different gear.
“The strategy includes a stronger focus on sustainability not the least through e-mobility, digitalisation and connectivity; continued integration of Navistar and growth in the North American market, as well as continued investments in China over the next few years.
“This change will comprise of several steps over time and by the end of the year a fuller plan will be presented.”
Read how Levin came to the leading post at Scania, here
Gründler highlighted the progress Traton has made under his watch and the task Levin faces.
“We were able to implement the Global Champion strategy faster than expected,” he said.
“This means that Traton is now on stable footing internationally.
“The task now is to lead Traton into a sustainable future beyond conventional business models and ways of thinking.
“With Christian Levin at the helm, the Traton Group can now benefit even more from its lead brand Scania. Christian Levin is exactly the right person for this task and I wish him and the entire Traton team every success.”
Traton chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch paid tribute to the outgoing executives.
“I would like to expressly thank Matthias Gründler and Christian Schulz on behalf of the entire supervisory board for the work they have done and the mutual successes achieved.
“Both of them pushed the implementation of the Global Champion strategy massively and thus achieved major milestones for the Traton Group in a short time.
“I see Christian Levin as a strong leader to execute on the next chapter for the group, he has my full support to lead the journey towards stronger profitability and growth.
“Christian Levin and Annette Danielski will consequently implement the jointly developed new Traton strategy.”